It is now generally accepted that for the African woman to be accepted as pretty or beautiful, she needs to be wearing a foreign hair popularly called wigs. The wigs come in various colours, sizes, forms and dimensions. As I previously pointed out, the industry provides jobs for several women and is a multibillion-dollar industry in Africa and globally.

The target is simple. It is the African woman who has lost her pride and sense of dignity. The present generation of African women dominating the social media, film industry and other social platforms have lost it completely. They are rich, they are famous and they are celebrities. But they lack one thing: self-dignity.

Again, l will go back memory lane. I am 46 years old and I remember growing up in Lagos, South-West Nigeria. My mother never liked the idea of my sisters putting chemicals on their hair and she frowned at it. Her take was that my sisters must always braid their hair the African way. It was the same for many families. Our parents did all they could to persuade our sisters and even some of us guys from using chemicals on our hair. The barber shop it was for us.

But just a couple of years down the lane. The dignity of the African woman has been completely eroded. She takes no pride in the colour of her skin. She takes no pride in the texture of her hair. She takes no pride in her curly, tangled hair. The African woman wants straight hair. It is so bad that so many African girls and ladies would not appear in public without the foreign hair.

Omotola Talade-Ekeinde (@realomosexy)

It is going to be one of those huge tasks that we have ahead of us in Africa to reverse and revert the trend. But it is a cause some of us must continue to remind ourselves of. The celebrities and stars on Nigerian and African screens have failed Nigeria and Africa. They are big stars and they are the biggest hope of a trend reverse.

Funke Akindele Bello (@funkejenifaakindele)

A few of our stars are featured here. There are several more. But we just need all of them to take up the cause and help us reverse the trend. They may also need help themselves because they will not be able to do something about it if they don’t realise that they too have lost their sense of dignity and African-ness. But with several million followers on Instagram and twitter, the best way to bring back the pride of the African woman is through these social celebrities and actresses.

Some may argue that they use the wigs for acting and work, but that argument does not hold water. What is wrong with acting and working with the African hair? Why must we act, work, live and go around with foreign hair? Why are we not proud of who we are and what nature endowed us with?

Toyin Abraham (@toyin_abraham)

We need Africans to promote Africa. We need ourselves to sustain and maintain our values, culture and way of life. We have lost our languages. We have lost our mode of dressings. We cannot afford to lose our heads and our brains with the hairs. Something urgent need to be done.

In our schools, from the primary to the university, awareness need to be created about the pride of the African woman. One day l wrote to @iamlizzyjay about her natural hair and l implored her to keep it African. But l see how hard it is to remain pure and natural in the industry because she wore wigs a few times and went back to natural a few times.

Linda Ikeji (@officiallindaikeji)

@calabarchic does not even know where to stay. She is also back and forth. She’s trying to keep her natural hair but the industry and the “norm” for what a woman in Nigeria should look like is creating a lot of confusion. It is like if you are not wearing wig or a foreign hair, you are local. That is how terrible the image and dignity of the African woman had been battered.

@iamlizzyjay

@iamlizzyjay

You have to feel sorry for the African woman especially from the entertainment industry point of view. They need help. We need help because their takes have destroyed our values and expectations of the women that nature gave us. We need a return to the basics.

@calabar_chic

We need role models of African origins to keep African culture and tradition.

I look forward to the day that African women will look 100% African again.

I salute the courage of the Super Falcons. I salute the tenacity of their actions and their boldness. I stand with the Super Falcons in condemning the maltreatment of women in Nigeria/Africa/anywhere in the world.

Super Falcons’ Dilemma: The Shame Drops on Buhari’s Table!

By Adeola Aderounmu

The government of Nigeria under president Buhari has no shame. This type of government is what the Yorubas call Agbaya. In fact, some people think that Nigeria is on auto-pilot. How else can we explain the maltreatment of the Super Falcons of Nigeria, the champions of Africa?

The glamorous girls won the African women championship. They defeated Cameroun 1-0 in Yaounde since December 3 2016.

The Super Falcons won the tournament for a record 8th time. They dominate the championship in Africa. Winning the trophy is equivalent to the male footballers winning the African Cup of Nations and Nigeria has only succeeded 3 times (1980, 1994 and 2013)

But these beautiful ladies have dominated the women edition and they have continuously reminded Africa and the world of the fighting spirit of the Nigerian woman.

The government of Nigeria, over several years, maintains a chaotic and a well documented embarassing history of disagreements with sportmen and women. The government of Nigeria ia good at not keeping promises and not rewarding dignity in labour.

The change that was promised by the APC-Buhari mandate was supposed to be a comprehensive process and the change was supposed to address or redress everything done wrongly in the past.

However it appears that the ”change” promised by the APC-Buhari mandate is a scam!

Sadly too, rather than ”change” the APC-Buhari mandate has magnified the problems in Nigeria. The level of embarassment is a new record in Nigerian sport for example.

In recent memory, at a time that government officials and even the families of the president were making hitch-free trips around the world, the Nigerian male olympic team was stuck in Atlanta in the US because of matters relating purely to finance and payments. They almost did not make it to the Olympics game where they later won the bronze.

The case of the Falcons should never have degenerated to the point where the girls would now be demonstrating and ”begging” for rewards at the doorsteps of the National Assembly and Aso Rock. These two places in Nigeria are where the most rot and wastages are taking place. The girls knew where to go.

As the president of Nigeria, Mr. Buhari was supposed to make haste not only to congratulate the girls (which he actually did very well), but also to ensure that their first stop in Nigeria is the Aso Villa for rewards and awards.

When will Nigeria stop rewarding criminals? When will Nigeria start rewarding citizens who are honest and patriotic?

On the plights of the Super Falcons, Mr. Buhari has failed again. In many ways and in many situations where leadership is in request, Mr. Buhari has failed. The APC-Buhari mandate is failing.

To show the extent of the ineptitude of the APC-Buhari mandate, the minister of sport in Nigeria came out and announced to the world that the government of Buhari did not expect the Falcons to win the continental tournament in Yaounde.

The statement has a lot of weight and if Nigeria was indeed a real country, president Buhari should have been impeached or shown the way out of office by now. But in Nigeria, the rulers are paramount and the politicians are lords of the loots and owners of the country.

If the Falcons had won silver at the tournament in Cameroun, they would not have been given any reward or recognition at all. That was the implication of the minister’s statement. The minister represents Mr. Buhari and he is a significant revelation of the failure of the APC-Buhari mandate.

Even if there was no money at the time the final whistle went in Yaounde, it became a matter of national priority at that point that the president and the sport ministry go shopping. That is what leaders do. That is what visionary people do.

They solve problems. They never pass the burden to the people who should be praised or rewarded. It is extremely shameful and embarassing that government like this exist. The APC-Buhari mandate houses people and rulers who don’t care or give a damn about the sufferings of the people who served and sacrificed for the country.

The news of the plights of the Super Falcon is now global. What does that say about the image of a presidency preaching the change begins with me? Indeed the change must begin with the APC-Buhari mandate. For, you cannot preach change to the people and keep doing things the dirty old ways. Change doesn’t work that way.

Nigeria is rotten and the country is going no where with the types of non-thinkers trying to shape the future of the country. The country is on the way to perdition. The country needs freshness.

I salute the courage of the Super Falcons. I salute the tenacity of their actions and boldness. I stand with the Super Falcons in condemning the maltreatment of women in Nigeria/Africa/anywhere in the world.

I condemn in the strongest term the hypocrisy of Mr. Buhari who is always quick to respond to events in foreign countries and extremely very slow and insensitive to the plights of Nigerians at home. Charity must always begin at home.

I condemn with the sharpest tone the existence of a nonentity as the sport minister in Nigeria.

I stand with the likes of Mikel Obi who gave their all for Nigeria at the expense of place in his beloved Chelsea.

I stand with all the members of the Super Falcons who left their teams at home and abroad to represent their motherland. I stand with the coaches and technical crew who made Nigeria proud.

I stand with the super falcons and every sport man and woman sweating water and blood in the name of patriotism to Nigeria.